Being a meditation on...
by El Juno
Summary: The title's a LOT longer than that...Ken's leaving home, Daisuke is reacting. Daiken, but pretty clean...I'd let my parents read it...


Okay, first things first. Someone reviewed one of my earlier stories with a comment something like (don't have it in front of me...) "This is the stupidest Kensuke ever! No romance, no kissing...BORING!"  
  
If that describes your feelings, hit the happy back button. This is definitely Shonen-ai, definitely Daiken...but I'd have no problem reading this to my Grandparents, if you changed Ken to a girl, or somehow convinced them that Daisuke was a girl's name.  
  
This airport...as far as I know...exists only in my imagination. There might be one like it near Tokyo, there's DEFINATELY one in Massachusetts, but the fact is I wanted to set it in a bus station...until I realized that going on a bus in Japan wouldn't get you very far. And I don't really know where Ken went, though I have my own ideas, and the same goes for why he left.  
  
And the full title of this is "Being a meditation on the topic of love, lost chances and the difference between airports and bus terminals, or 'Leaving Home'" I was feeling very Victorian and/or Gaiman-esque when I finished this story, and the title seemed to be the only REAL fit...  
  
*****  
  
It could have been any time, but it was on a sweltering day somewhere in the long, dead stretch between June and September.  
  
It could have been any place, but it was in a small, barely international airport in Tokyo, Japan.  
  
It could have been any one...or maybe not. For the boy who sat in the waiting area would likely have stood out even if it wasn't for the small, green Digimon dozing on his knee. There was just...something. Something...it wasn't his aggressively unfashionable clothes, or the boots on his feet, or the scuffed suitcase he rocked back and forth thoughtfully with his left toe...it wasn't any of that. In fact...it almost seemed to work in spite of all that, in spite of anything that would have made him easily classifiable. He just...was.  
  
The other boy, of course, noticed him from the minute he peered in the gate. It was partially that "otherness," that...whatever...that shone on him, made him...something else. It was also partially that they were good friends, and the second boy...his name was Daisuke...would have been able to spot the first somewhere much busier. That was just the way it was.  
  
The airport was something else, as well. In fact, the general tonality...the aura, if you will...was that of a bus terminal. The same feeling...or, perhaps, soul-sucking LACK of feeling. Many larger or even medium-sized airports get caught in the trap of trying to be real places, of putting on layers of authority and individuality, of impressing the people who enter. Bus terminals, on the other hand, know their place. They're somewhere you sit and wait to be taken away, your last experience of a place, and don't really need to be memorable, to impress you or even really make you comfortable...after all, if you were THAT important, you'd take a plane. They're stark, uncaring places. Cold, but, at the same moment, utterly true and without artifice. This airport gave the same feeling...perhaps it was because it served the same purpose. Important travelers didn't come through here, the room was almost bare of businessmen, and there was nary a traveling family in sight...bargain-basement. That's what it was. It offered reduced fares for the loss of certain frills...frills such as central air, or seats even vaguely designed for humans, or the certainty that your car would still be extant when you returned. Things like that. Things that you might not be able to LIVE without, but you could lose. At least...for a few hours.  
  
And, it was in that space, that guiless squalor, that Daisuke saw Ken again, just for a few hours.  
  
It was, on some level, pure dumb luck and instinct that had led Daisuke there. He'd been planning to meet up with Ken at one point to just...hang out...and when he called, Ken's parents had said he'd gone out...and some relay just snapped closed and...well...here he was. He might not have been the brightest bulb on the string, but when it came to Ken his instincts could be flawless.  
  
He was saved from thinking up an uninspired and likely stupid opening line when Ken turned and spotted him. A guilty smile...no, not a smile, almost a wince...spread across the black-haired boy's face, and he gestured to an empty seat next to him, moving Wormmon fully onto his lap to make that much more room. Wormmon woke for an instant, looking up as Daisuke sat down, then, apparently affected by the tone of the place, went back into his nap.  
  
And then the boys looked at each other.  
  
And, in idleness, they talked.  
  
The full nature of their conversation is not important...let it just be said that they talked like any two friends who would now be alone, that they, like any young people, said things both wise and foolish, said words that they would hold forever, words they would forget and words they would pay to take back. But they were just words and to put them down on paper would be to rob them of their only true place, in the air between those two boys on that unspeakably hot day. So, let us move on.  
  
Let us move on to ten minutes before boarding, to the last moments of the last moments of their time together.  
  
To the moment when Daisuke realized that this was irreversible, that Ken was leaving, that he would likely never see him again.  
  
To the moment when Daisuke found himself remembering idle thoughts he'd entertained about the other boy...thoughts of kisses, thoughts of more...thoughts that heretofore he had only acknowledged in the still of the moments between waking and dreaming, and those between dreaming and waking.  
  
To the moment when Daisuke realized that this was the end, and that anything he took right now he would never have to pay for. He could steal a kiss, a touch...even pull Ken outside and have his way with him, and he'd never have to face Ken again and deal with what he'd done.  
  
To the moment when Daisuke allowed himself to notice that Ken had the prettiest eyes ever...eyes you could drown in.  
  
And Daisuke looked up, and Daisuke swallowed, and Ken looked at him for a second then looked away, pushing his hair back with his long fingers, a motion both thoughtless and thoughtful.  
  
And, slowly, in a voice scarcely above a whisper, Ken admitted that he was going to miss Daisuke terribly.  
  
And then he reached out his hand, quietly, almost shyly.  
  
And the boarding call began, people seated in first class, those with small children or those needing any extra time.  
  
And Daisuke glanced at Ken's hand, allowing himself to notice the delicate bones in the fingers, the length, the light, the gently knobby way Ken's tiny wrist protruded from his cuff. And he looked...  
  
And he realized that there was no good way to end this. That whatever happened, he'd regret it.  
  
And he took Ken's hand as if to shake it, but he ended up just clasping the fingers for a moment, and he looked up, seeing the tears starting in Ken's eyes, trying to ignore the blurriness in his own vision, and he lifted a hand as if to touch Ken's hair...to take SOMETHING from this...  
  
And the boarding call continued...people sitting in exit rows and rows 1-14, and Ken gave his hand a gentle squeeze and dropped it, and picked up Wormmon and his carry-on bag and turned to leave, turning back at the last moment as if to wave, though he did nothing except give a sad grin.  
  
And Daisuke went to the window and he waved at the plane though the boarding, waved as it pulled out, waved as it started to taxi, until both his arms were sore and tired, but before the plane took off he turned away from the window to leave, unable to watch as it dissapeared into the blinding cloudless blue.  
  
~END~  



End file.
